Free The Diamond Moon by Paul Preuss Page B

year,” Mays said. “No, Dr. Hawkins, Professor Forster wants more than a survey of Amalthea’s surface or a picture of its interior. He is looking for something . . . something beneath the ice.”
    Hawkins laughed. “The buried civilization of the ancient astronauts from Crux, is that it? Quite imaginative, Sir Randolph. Perhaps you should be writing adventure viddies instead of documentaries.” It was a juvenile retort. To Hawkins’s evident dismay, Marianne did not bother to hide her contempt. . . .
    Days later, Mays could still smile triumphantly at the memory of that moment. When Hawkins left the table a few moments later, he’d recovered just enough of his dignity to avoid making false excuses. “It’s clear that you have more to talk about with Sir Randolph than with me,” he’d said to Marianne. “It would be churlish of me to interfere.”
And indeed they did have more to talk about. Much more. PART TWO

GANYMEDE CROSSING VIII
Two weeks earlier . . .
     
“You were right. I can’t leave Blake and the others out there floundering. I’m probably the only one alive who knows what to do.”
     
“ I was right?” Amusement touched Linda’s calm features. “Did I tell you all that?”
     
“You got me to think it, and then to say it. Which is the same thing.”
     
Linda nodded. “I suppose so.” The faint smile remained.
     
Sparta nervously paced her end of the room, her boot heels knocking softly on the bare polished boards. “Maybe I gave you the wrong impression. I’m not here for our reg-ular session.”
     
“Somehow I sensed that. For one thing, you haven’t sat down.”
     
“I wanted to tell you what I’ve decided.”
     
“And I’d like to hear it.”
    “Yes . . . Yes.” Sparta stopped pacing and stood at something resembling parade rest, her feet spaced apart, her hands clasped behind her. “I’ve made arrangements to join Forster. A fast cutter will take me to Ganymede. Planetary alignments are almost ideal. It should take a little over two weeks.”
    Linda said nothing, only sat upon her plain pine chair and listened. The light from the window was fitful, bright-ening and dimming with the swift passage of clouds before the sun, causing Linda’s and Sparta’s shadows to shrink and swell on the polished floorboards and enameled walls.
“And there are some other . . . details,” Sparta said.
     
“Which you wish to discuss with me.”
     
“That’s right. What we talked about before.”
     
“We’ve talked about a lot of things.”
     
“Specifically about . . . humanness. What it is to be hu-man.”
     
“Oh.”
    “Well, I don’t think I can define it for you—for myself—any better than I ever could.” In struggling to express con-cepts that seemed self-evident to the majority of those who ever thought of them at all, Sparta seemed younger than her years. She swiped at the short blond hair that fell below her eyebrows. “But I think I know now that . . . I mean, I don’t think it has anything to do with what’s done to the body. After a person is born, anyway.” Quickly she added, “I’m speaking generally.”
    “Of course.” Linda showed no amusement; Sparta’s state-ment, which in the abstract was so general as to be virtually without content, coming from her was a major concession. “Do I take it you no longer feel that you were robbed of your humanity by those who altered you?”
“More than that,” Sparta said. “I think . . . I mean, I’ve decided that nothing others do to me can rob me of my humanity.”
     
“Say more about that.”
     
“Nothing done to me, that is, so long as I can remain conscious of my own feelings.”
     
Linda smiled. “To hear you say so makes me feel very good.”
     
Sparta, startled, laughed abruptly. “You claim you can feel?”
    “Oh yes. You’re the one who taught me that feelings are thoughts that need no words. Granted I’m not human; I’m the projection of what we agree is a machine. Nevertheless I